Illuminate May be Gaining Traction

I’ve talked about ADBMS vendor Illuminate in two posts already this year, and for a small firm with little North American footprint, they continue to drive a surprising number of questions I receive. I had a quick chat with Andrew Fletcher, the VP responsible for building out the partner network, and he’s upbeat about theContinue reading “Illuminate May be Gaining Traction”

Kickfire Disrupts DW Economics, Targets Mainstream ADBMS Opportunities

In just 18 months, Kickfire has established itself as one of the most intriguing of the ADBMS insurgents. It espouses a radical go-to-market strategy: target the overwhelming majority of the market in the sub-5Tb space, and let others battle over who’s doing best at the top end, fighting over a small group of prospects. KickfireContinue reading “Kickfire Disrupts DW Economics, Targets Mainstream ADBMS Opportunities”

Netezza Still Tops ADBMS Insurgents

Netezza’s 2009 so far has demonstrated that its ADBMS leadership is firming up. Several vendors have navigated a difficult year in the general economic sphere and in their own market’s quest for visibility, and Netezza has pushed forward with some aggressive moves from atop the pack. Phil Francisco, Vice President of Product Management and ProductContinue reading “Netezza Still Tops ADBMS Insurgents”

Workday and Vertica: Cracking the 100 Customer Mark

Workday announced today that it has passed the 100-customer mark, and the milestone struck me as another important rite of passage. Such milestones are especially important in emerging markets that have not yet achieved mainstream recognition. In Workday’s case, this arguably represents a substantial step forward in the enterprise-class SaaS-based application market. Following in theContinue reading “Workday and Vertica: Cracking the 100 Customer Mark”

What’s An Eigenbase?

The open source community is remarkable in many ways. For me, one of the most significant aspects of it is exactly that: it IS a community. It’s composed of people who communicate and share in deep and productive ways. One of the most interesting manifestations of that spirit I’ve run across is the Eigenbase project,Continue reading “What’s An Eigenbase?”

Vertica Projects Leadership, Embraces MapReduce (Sorta)

With the August announcement of Vertica Analytic Database 3.5, Vertica is laying claim to leadership of the new ADBMS vendors. With its most recent numbers – several dozens of customers are now in production and the company expects to pass 100 this year – the assertion bears thinking about. Driving forward with an aggressive releaseContinue reading “Vertica Projects Leadership, Embraces MapReduce (Sorta)”

Sybase’s DBMS Business Shows Sea Legs – But Challenges Lay Ahead

Sybase has rolled out a good Q2 in difficult times, reflecting once again the steady, effective management that has characterized the past few years. All-time highs in margins, earnings, and cash flow – coming at the bottom (one hopes) of the current recession – are nothing to sneeze at. The first highlighted item in chairmanContinue reading “Sybase’s DBMS Business Shows Sea Legs – But Challenges Lay Ahead”

IBM’s Smart Analytics System: More Than An Appliance?

When is an appliance not an appliance? When it’s more. On July 28, IBM’s Software Group and Systems and Technology Group (i.e., the hardware folks) hosted an analyst event to introduce the Smart Analytics System.The discussion began with a series of conversations about the value of “workload optimization,” or the effective tuning of processors, storage, memory andContinue reading “IBM’s Smart Analytics System: More Than An Appliance?”

Aster Appliance Elevates MapReduce Chatter, ADBMS Visibility

Since my last post about Aster, the analytic DBMS (ADBMS) vendor has added another arrow to its quiver. Its new MapReduce Data Warehouse Appliance Express Edition starts at $50,000, and includes Aster nCluster on Dell hardware and a copy of MicroStrategy BI software for up to 1 Tb of user data, which Aster clearly sees as a sweet spot.Continue reading “Aster Appliance Elevates MapReduce Chatter, ADBMS Visibility”

Infobright Bids to Anchor An Open Source DW Ecosystem

I recently sat down for a talk with Miriam Tuerk, CEO of Infobright – an open source, commodity hardware-based analytic database (ADBMS) vendor focused on the data warehousing market. Infobright is another of the leaders in the open source information management wave IT Market Strategy has been tracking. Founded in 2006, Infobright has assembled aContinue reading “Infobright Bids to Anchor An Open Source DW Ecosystem”